Akin isn’t a glitch, he’s a feature of the GOP

You may recall that GOP Cong. Akin is running for the US Senate from Missouri, and recently made some quite incendiary comments about rape and abortion. Here’s that from Marketwatch:

Akin, a Missouri congressman who is challenging Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, said on Sunday that pregnancy caused by rape is “really rare,” and that in the case of “legitimate rape,” women’s bodies have “ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

And here’s the video of him making the comment:

Now the problem for the GOP: Akin needs to pull out by the end of today or it gets a lot harder, but not impossible, for the GOP to replace him with someone else. From CNN:

Missouri election rules allow a candidate to withdraw with little difficulty through Tuesday, which is 11 weeks prior to the Nov. 6 election.After Tuesday, the candidate must get a court order and pay for any necessary reprinting of ballots. The state Republican Party would choose another candidate to run against McCaskill, considered one of the most vulnerable senators in the country.

The truth is the “legitimate rape” comment made by U.S. Rep. Todd Akin — as in pregnancy from “legitimate rape” is rare — is not a GOP anomaly, but rather another disturbing glimpse into the viewpoint too many social conservatives have about women’s health and reproductive rights. And if abortion is not among the “real issues,” why is the GOP platform committee considering adding a ban, with no mention of exceptions, to this year’s to-do list?

Last March, in a discussion in the Kansas House about whether women purchase separate abortion-only policies, Republican state Rep. Pete DeGraaf suggested women should plan ahead for rape the way he keeps a spare tire. A few weeks later, Indiana state Rep. Eric Turner, a Republican, said some women might fake being raped in order to get free abortions.

Former presidential hopeful Rick Santorum suggested doctors who perform an abortion on a woman who becomes pregnant from an attack should be thrown in jail and this year suggested rape victims who become pregnant from an attack should be forced to keep the baby and “make the best out of a bad situation.”

John AravosisFollow me on Twitter: @aravosis | @americablog | @americabloggay | Facebook | Instagram | Google+ | LinkedIn. John Aravosis is the Executive Editor of AMERICAblog, which he founded in 2004. He has a joint law degree (JD) and masters in Foreign Service from Georgetown; and has worked in the US Senate, World Bank, Children's Defense Fund, the United Nations Development Programme, and as a stringer for the Economist. He is a frequent TV pundit, having appeared on the O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, World News Tonight, Nightline, AM Joy & Reliable Sources, among others. John lives in New York City, and is the cofounder of TimeToResign.com. Bio, article archive.

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